


Living? Been There, Done That

by CookieCatSU



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: And he doesn't stay dead so don't worry, And the Frenrey is pretty lowkey, Answer: nowhere, Bubby and Dr. Coomer only really get mentioned, M/M, Major Character Death is Benrey, Where does Benrey go when he dies?, and everywhere, in depth analysis, just kidding, this is Benrey after all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25458235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieCatSU/pseuds/CookieCatSU
Summary: Benrey wasn't afraid, of death.He had no reason to fear it. He'd died a dozen times before, and he always came back.Until he doesn't.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138
Collections: Key Enjoyed





	Living? Been There, Done That

Death is surprisingly peaceful. There's none of that signal static anger, none of the warping, stretching hunger pang insanity.

There's nothing at all.

It's nice.

* * *

Benrey hadn't been afraid to die. Well, no, there'd been a short moment of fear, after the passports, and before he fully realized he'd been defeated, but it was fleeting.

He had no reason to fear death. He's died a dozen times before, and he'd always come back.

In that way, it's predictable. Death. In that way, he's predictable.

He always comes back.

He laughs where he stands, even as he smolders. He blows Feetman a kiss, just to be extra cheeky, before he's falling, and everything blurs around him like a waxy mess.

* * *

True death, real death, comes once he's _alone_.

True death is being _alone_.

The white, blank room is the same as he remembers, a small little void space, a purgatory of sorts, which he'll remain in until he's recuperated enough to return. Or until he tires of waiting. The latter usually comes first.

He drills his fingers against the plastic - glass - ceramic, who knows or cares what it is, floor, warping and shifting beneath him, producing a rap tap tap melody that helps to make the silence a little less grating. He huffs after a minute or so, and jumps to his feet, ready to get gone already.

"benrey is out" He pauses, when nothing happens. No door opens, appearing from within the featureless wall in front of him.

Weird. Very out of the ordinary.

He scowls. "that's major cringe, refusing to let me go like that"

Still nothing.

He presses his hand to the wall - the fuzzy smooth prickly wall - which kind of melds to his touch, rippling around his palm, but gives no sign of, well, giving. There's a bit of bounce back, when he tries to reach any further than surface level.

He slams both hands on the wall and tries to pry it open.

"fine, I'll just make my own entrance, stinky box" He sneers, but the effort is futile.

His fingers just slide across the surface, failing to gain any purchase, skidding against jello : solid : liquid : water, just slick enough to be impossible to grip.

He rolls his eyes, and slumps onto the floor.

It's silent. Cold. He's _alone_.

* * *

It takes him ten minutes, to realize he's trapped.

 _Trapped_. He's never been trapped before.

He can't leave. Something's stopping him.

For the first time, he wonders, if this time is different than all the other times.

He wonders, If this death is _different_ than all the other deaths. More absolute?

As he sits with his back against solid, not solid, _too_ solid void space, it occurs to him that the question is not _when_ he will return, this time, but _if_.

"okay, gordos feetmen: 1. beeeenrey awesome gamer: 0"

* * *

2 months pass.

Benrey sits and waits and waits and suffers and waits.

He's honestly lost all sense of time and self, and he's beginning to meld into the void walls, melting and oozing, becoming one with the scenery and all that jazz.

Then a window is opening, splitting the phantom space down the center.

Benrey immediately scrambles over, melding and nonchalance be forgotten, and beams at the scene he sees through the square cut out.

He squeezes himself through without a second thought, smashing too wide shoulders through a too narrow hole.

* * *

He sneaks through the fabric of space, time, reality, like a tiny spider crawling through the cracks in a house's foundations, or an earworm. First a toe, then a leg, then torso, hands, face, body.

His flesh sloughs off, meat in a strainer, but he's unconcerned. He'd gotten used to the bare, exposed feel of bone totally open to the outside environment immediately following a resurrection. Nothing unusual there.

It'll regenerate in a couple days. And he had like forever (now that he knew for sure he wasn't dead ( _alone_ ) for good) anyway, so who cares.

He perches on Gordon's window sill, watching him watch television on his couch. That gets boring after about ten minutes though, because everything other than Heavenly Sword and his Playstation gets boring after about ten minutes, so he decides to act.

"hey dude, gimme some of that popcorn" Benrey calls with a smirk, "house guest's feeling snacky"

Gordon jumps like a fucking mile (Benrey snickers), yelps, and turns sharply to face the intruder who'd just now decided to slink off the window sill. His gaze hardens immediately, exasperation setting in.

"God dammit. I thought you were fucking dead. The hell, man?"

"first off, rude and-" He pauses abruptly, "did feetman miss me?"

Because Benrey missed him. (He missed all of them, in fact, missed society and people and not being trapped in an interdimensional cardboard box. He missed being something approximate to not dead, too, and causing general mayhem, but he supposed he missed Feetman the most).

"Absolutely not. I'm ticked because we _killed_ you, and your supposed to be gone, for good, but apparently the universe hates me"

"dude you missed me. i can tell by your face ridges, all poking out and shit"

"What?"

"i'm an expert reader of face ridges" He sits down beside him, ignoring his loud, and sputtering, protests, "now hand over the snacks. benny needs fatty nutrients... build them bones strong. and what are we watchin', some of that nature turtle shit?"

" _We_ aren't watching anything" Gordon snaps, but Benrey doesn't move, and Gordon, such a polite hostess, doesn't make him.

Benrey smirks, and stretches out across the couch like an overgrown cat. It sure was good to be back in the land of the living.

If he doesn't look away from the screen, exuding such wonderful, LED light, he can almost pretend he doesn't see edges of stark white void in the corner of his vision. Because he doesn't.

He's done with that.

And what Benrey says, goes.

* * *

He first begins to panic when he looks in the mirror, and he can see tiny lacerations where his eyes used to be - well, his other, not human eyes, his multiple eyes, his four, or twenty six, or thirty seven eyes, depending on the mood he was in. All just gone.

"gordos, did you steal my eyeballs?" Benrey calls, glaring into the mirror. He picks up the tweezers and pokes at one of the eyelid shaped scars. They're totally flat, not raised at all, as if they'd healed ages ago, before they even got made. Weird.

"What? What the fuck are you talking about, Benrey?" Gordon calls from further in the house, probably from the kitchen. Cha' boy was always in the kitchen.

"my eye - balls, my liquid seeing sacks… did you take 'em? gonna sell 'em on the dark web? cause if so it'd be majorly shit... major garbage shit, not to gimme a cut of that paper"

"I don't have time for this" Gordon snaps. His voice was getting noticeably farther away, and noticeably more irritated (it's a loving kind of irritated, though). Benrey smirks.

"I need greeeeeen, feetman"

Gordon doesn't answer.

* * *

It's cool. The new scars don't bother him, at first. Sure, they start to itch, all scratchy and stuff, but the fact that he has them isn't a big deal or anything. It isn't a cause for alarm. They don't _bother_ him.

Not being able to scare Gordon in the middle of night by flashing an amalogous array of glowing yellow eyeballs, does.

But he doesn't really start to bug out until the sclera of his eyes start to whiten, and the alien yellow starts to fade, and his teeth become more blunt, less deadly sharp and pointed.

Then Benrey's pretty ticked off.

* * *

Gordon stares at him, "So, you're becoming a-"

"no, i'm not becoming a meat sack. I'm still a benrey"

"So, you're just, what?"

He shrugs, apathetic as usual, "trying some new stuff. never heard of personal growth, feetman? ugh, so judgemental"

Gordon grits his teeth.

* * *

He has to eat now. Among other things.

Benrey can still do a lot of the stuff he could do before, like teleporting and moving through walls and stuff, but it's significantly restricted.

He's becoming more and more like the human dweebs, and he hates it.

"it sucks, bro" He says to Tommy, glaring at his hands. He can still change their size, and the rest of his body's size, at will, but it's not the same. He can feel his skin, stretching and bulging and protesting, keeping him contained like a cyclone in rebar, or something. It's incredibly grating.

"how do you do it? this is ultra cringe"

"It's not that bad, once you get used to it" Tommy assured him, "And there are benefits. You uh, get to have human friends, and live a life, and have soda!"

Benrey gives a noncommittal hum. He liked soda... and fucking with his fellow man, sure, but was it worth giving up so much?

"I miss my extra eyes, my ex-eyes"

Tommy pats him on the back reassuringly, and tells him it'll be alright.

* * *

It occurs to him, that perhaps, a slightly more human existence was the consequence of his most recent revival. You know, _you can come back, but only less awesome and OP_. A life for a life.

He considers if he really wants this life. This shit life.

Gordon punches him in the arm, and Bubby's just set something on fire, and he isn't even sure where Tommy or Darnold or any of the others are. Then someone's throwing a massive water gun in his hands (It's Dr. Coomer, with a too wide, too bright smile stretched across his face), and telling him to keep shooting until he decimates all competition.

And he grins like a fool, and he thinks, _hell yeah_.

They're all soaked within an hour, wet to the bone, and Benrey's shivering, splayed out on the grass with everyone else. He's aching too, and he's never felt _achy_ before, but he welcomes the sensation.

Gordon tells stories, and Benrey sits with his cheek leant up on his palm, watching him, and they all talk, and laugh all night. It's all so inexplicably warm, and comforting, and Benrey can't stop smiling.

He could get _used_ to this. This was a life _worth_ living.

* * *

Benrey's never lived, before.

He'd never really been alive, in the first place.

Now was as good a time to try as any, though.

He wants to try.


End file.
